Saturday, June 23, 2012

Swearing on Paper

I’ve been working on my next novel these past few weeks
and the days have positively flown by. This is a good thing, of course, because eventually I
will hit a wall and fall into a heap of burnt-out exhaustion. But for now, the writing is
flowing. What has been interesting to me is the direction this latest novel is
taking. Characters that were intended to be protagonists, have turned evil, the
storyline is spinning off into some bizarre but wonderful tangent and there are times
my fingers can’t keep up with the chattering in my head.

In addition to that, there happens to be (gasp!) swearing.

I’m usually quite conservative when it comes to
swearing in my novels. In my YA fantasy Pradee, there is no swearing for
obvious reasons—it’s YA literature. In Between, my paranormal fantasy coming
from Musa Publishing, I found that I enjoyed a bit more leeway as
far as how my characters expressed themselves. Still, you simply won’t find an
f-bomb in that novel. It just never came up.

I’m definitely not a prude. I have no problem with my
daughters expressing themselves freely at home, as long as they are mindful in public. I, myself, have been known to have quite the mouth on
me when I get angry. But for some reason, I have a very hard time typing out...swear words.
However, the line has been
crossed in this latest work. And I swear (no pun intended) that it’s not my
fault.

First, let me say that this novel has taken several twists and turns and has gone
into a direction I hadn’t intended. That happens sometimes, well, a lot of times
actually. I always tell people that my characters tell me what to write, not
vice versa. And apparently, the characters in this novel have no issues with
dropping four-letter words here and there. It hasn’t been excessive, but they
keep popping up on my page, unbidden. Last week, I found myself deleting these
expletives, but gosh darn it, they kept coming back.

I was thinking this morning about why it bothered me so much
to type those verboten words. It’s not like it bothered me to read them in other people’s
novels. Perhaps it stemmed from my upbringing. My mother was pretty strict when
it came to language. If my dad or I slipped up with a “damn it” or “crap,” I
was immediately punished and my dad got the silent treatment—sometimes
for hours. My mother always said that a lady never swore and neither did a true
gentleman. She was a bit old-fashioned.
I am a lady, but yes, sometimes I swear like a sailor.

Just not on paper.

But here I was, swearing on paper and feeling guilty about
it. There was one particular instance where I typed out a four-letter word and
deleted it five times before it fell out of my own mouth and I just left it.

Why are swear words so taboo? They’re just words, after all,
and they all seem to be in the dictionary. I decided to look up the history of profanity
and came across this; “Swearing and cursing are modes of speech existing in all
human languages. They perform certain social and psychological functions, and
utilize particular linguistic and neurological mechanisms.” Well, there you go.
I have a minor in Anthropology, I should know that. I was performing a social
and psychological function by allowing my characters to express themselves as
freely on paper as they were expressing themselves in my head. I also read that, “Swearing is a widespread
but perhaps underappreciated anger management technique.” My mother did have
some issues there, maybe she just needed to swear more (I’ll get struck by
lightning for that one, I know, I know). I went onto to read that the Bible,
Shakespeare and the earliest known writings also contained swearing. Icing on
the cake, boys and girls. If Shakespeare did it, I’m in. I do remember reading
Shakespeare in university and coming across quite a bit of colorful language.
It just happened to be language we no longer use.

So, I will continue to let my characters have their freedom and will try my best not to cringe when they
toss something out there that causes my fingers to freeze and stutter.

After that, however, I promise to make them go stand in the
corner for not behaving like ladies and gentlemen.

2 comments:

The characters in my recently published romance novel, "Finding Grace," have terrible potty mouths. Especially the heroine. I was a little chagrined when one of my male readers was more than a little taken aback. None of the women and not the other two guys I shared it with cared. I expected my editor to say something, though. She didn't, other than to prefer uppercase when using the deity's name in vain (which makes me cringe).

My current WIP features a heroine who eschews any sort of foul language, although the hero throws a few around.

I think it's important to let our characters be who they are, even if their behavior surprises us. I say, good for you, Clarissa!

About Me

Clarissa Johal is the bestselling author of The Lighthouse, Whispers in the Wood, Poppy, The Island, Voices, Struck and Between.
When she’s not listening to the ghosts in her head, she’s swinging from a trapeze, or taking pictures of gargoyles.

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